Senior Manager, Technology - Craft Education

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country-and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future-consider Craft Education as the next step in your career.

Craft Education is on a mission to solve skilled labor shortages by powering work-based learning pathways for all.

At Craft, we're revolutionizing the apprenticeship degree, combining on-the-job learning with accredited instruction to create innovative educational pathways that accommodate working professionals and meet employer needs. Our flagship product - Craft Connect - helps organizations administer apprentice degree programs and address mission-critical data and reporting needs. Through the same platform, Craft is also transforming how on-the-job learning converts into academic credits.

Our team of technology, education and workforce professionals also provides technical assistance to organizations looking to launch and manage apprenticeship degree programs. We are working tirelessly to accelerate the expansion of these programs along with the data infrastructure that underpins them.

If you're looking to join the work-based learning revolution, we'd love to talk with you. At Craft, you'll have the opportunity to solve hard problems in a high-growth startup environment and make a lasting impact on the future of education and workforce development. We couldn't be more excited to advance this work as a team of innovative, collaborative and mission-oriented professionals - we hope you'll consider joining us.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Job Description

Job Summary

The Senior Manager, Technology role leads engineers on product development and integration teams. They will provide vision, training, technical standards, and direction to engineers who are required to know multiple languages for front-end, back-end, qa and cloud engineering responsibilities. They will work closely with leadership to strengthen a culture of collaboration and innovation within highly effective teams. They will contribute to cross-functional teams as a lead engineer mentoring or pairing with team members in technical and development tasks.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Supervises technology team members, providing training, technical standards, and direction.
• Collaborates with leadership, designers, developers, and subject matter experts to establish the technical vision and analyze trade-offs between usability and performance needs, determining platforms, components, software applications, technologies, and security measures.
• Interfaces with product, project, and external teams in the definition and execution of development projects; maintains collaborative relationships with all appropriate stakeholders.
• Works with internal and external customers to elicit technical requirements. Negotiates dependencies and maintains productive working relationships.
• Ensures optimized performance for high utilization, 24x7 access, accessibility (ADA), responsiveness, and scalability.
• Ensures data is always handled securely and in compliance with applicable laws.
• Develops and directs software system testing procedures, programming, and documentation.
• Continuously improves team's development approach, maximizing team's ability to balance quick execution with security and stability.
• Clearly communicates constraints, conflicts, requirements, compatibility issues, and items which could affect project outcome, final performance level, or product efficacy. Offers appropriate alternatives and contingency plans.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

• Provide technical and architectural leadership and successfully coach an engineering team.
• Develop and direct software system testing procedures, programming, and documentation; demonstrated commitment to efficient, secure, scalable, and maintainable code and engineering practices.
• Demonstrated ability to understand business needs and execute on a business strategy.
• Research, design, and develop computer software systems, applying principles and techniques of computer science, engineering, and mathematical analysis.
• Manage multiple tasks and responsibilities in rapid, deadline-driven environments; excelling at pinpointing and resolving problems in early project stages to avoid cost/time expenses.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical team members, external stakeholders, and management.
• Maintain effective working relationships with team members and stakeholders.
• Self-starter with bias for action while maintaining stable, secure user experiences.
• Ability to ramp up quickly on new technologies.
• Exhibit strong attention to detail.
• Exhibit excellent judgment.
• Provide team members with measurable goals and performance standards to track efficiency and performance against goals.

Necessary Skills/Areas of focus:

Organizational Structure/Performance:

• Develops plan to accomplish division or job area responsibilities that align with department and provides individual team members performance goals and targets.
• Compiles data to prepare budgets.

Problem Solving and Decision Making:

• Responsible for making improvements of processes or systems to enhance performance of the job area.
• Critical thinking skills and ability to prioritize competing priorities and communicate why and reasoning for decision

Communication and Influence:

• Communicates with senior leaders in a concise and relevant manner and based on problems to solve.

Leadership and Talent Management:

• Manages a team of professionals. Manages the work of assigned employees and/or supervisors who generally exercise some latitude and independence in their assignments.
• Ensures proper training of team members, and actively participates in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions. Conducts performance reviews and recommends salary reviews.
• Primarily achieves goals through leading a team.

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer sciences, information technology, or related field OR equivalent and relevant work experience.
• 10+ years of experience and a proven track record in developing web-based applications and web services including experience interfacing with databases, and integrating third party products with existing infrastructure.
• 2 years of experience leading teams of software engineering professionals or related leadership experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• 5 years of experience leading teams of software engineering professionals or related leadership experience.
• Master's degree in computer science, information technology, or related field.
• Start up or early stage company experience growing to scale

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

Position & Application Details

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.